BattleTech

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Despite some gameplay quibbles, the core loop of BattleTech – mech acquisition, customization, and combat – does a great job of adhering to the source material and providing engaging ballistic battles. Crunching an enemy core under your metal boot or scoping out a target for an enormous missile barrage are satisfying as hell, even if the frame of the title could stand for a little extra armor.

Some of my favorite and earliest gaming experiences came from a turn-based pencil and paper game called Battletech. The original tabletop game came out in 1981 and with it a whole universe based on what happens when we leave the solar system. In 1988...

It's like a Katy Perry song, this one. You think you're immune from its charms and then all of a sudden you're humming it in the shower and singing while you drive. Battletech is so unforgiving and challenging that it really tickles the part of my brain...

“Can I survive this barrage of incoming laser fire?” That is a very important question in BattleTech. But “Can I survive this month's financials?” is an even more important question. BattleTech puts you in command of a small group of mercenaries....

A SIMPLER TIME I still remember January 2003 like it was yesterday. Though Id owned the original Xbox for a few months, my parents had just bought me and my brother a subscription to Xbox Live, and I couldnt get enough. Playing on the 20-inch tube TV...

The tactical combat in BattleTech is excellent. Building a roster of gigantic killing machines and managing sundries offers a long-lasting gameplay loop. With a sharper narrative and more polish around the edges, the turn-based 'Mech-killing experience...

Despite some gameplay quibbles, the core loop of BattleTech – mech acquisition, customization, and combat – does a great job of adhering to the source material and providing engaging ballistic battles. Crunching an enemy core under your metal boot or scoping out a target for an enormous missile barrage are satisfying as hell, even if the frame of the title could stand for a little extra armor.

Enjoying Battletech takes time and patience. Born from the decades-old tabletop game of the same name (which also gave birth to the Mechwarrior series of games), the Harebrained Schemes version of Battletech places the universe into the genre most...

BattleTech provides exciting strategic decisions and a compelling story, plus the slow-paced and meticulous fun of building up and customizing a mercenary company but suffers from the frustrating unpredictability of its weapons and procedural missions,...

Perhaps BattleTech's worst crime is that, while it borrows many ideas from XCOM and augments them within its own deftly-weaved backstory, at the fundamental level - on the field of battle - it can't quite match XCOM's arms race-driven unit diversity or mission variety.

If you, like me, are a fan of a) giant robots and b) borderline-incoherently complex turn-based tactics and grand strategy games, you're probably going to like BattleTech. Doubly so if you're an old-school fan of the source material. Even with the...